by Cliff Vacin ‘25

I’m confident enough to say that everyone has sad or stressful periods throughout high school. My freshman, sophomore, and junior years were filled with a lot of misery, with most of the fault being my own. A lot of stress manifested throughout that time, and it’s hard to look back at my younger self and be proud of how life was.

My life wasn’t balanced properly, and I often neglected how I felt. My rationale was that if I ignored my feelings, they would go away–but they didn’t, and it reached the point that every non-positive feeling manifested into sadness. This was fine for me, until it turned physical, and I watched both my mental and physical state fail me. I had no help, so I thought abstractly and decided I was going to force myself to be happy until I achieved true happiness.

It was difficult. I didn’t want to be happier, and I had no willpower in standing up for myself. Starting small, I changed certain unnoticed habits about myself. I stopped listening to music that upset me, and I started paying more attention to my outfits and the weather around me. Albeit small, giving yourself things to care about will boost your overall care for life. As my senior year came around, it became much easier to be happy. Seeing the prospects of freedom and getting close to the end of a painful time for me, it became easier to live. Breathing became natural, and I finally could stand up for myself.

I watch the people similar to me, ones who entered high school with a lot of anger towards the world, the same people who would leave high school full of love. While adolescence and high school can foster a lot of sadness, high school also causes a lot of development around you. As an adult, I hold a lot of love for my younger self because, despite my immaturity and hopelessness surrounding life, I made it through.